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Liverpool Explain Reason for Including Goalkeeper Andy Lonergan in Pre-Season Tour

​Liverpool coach John Achterberg has explained the reasoning behind bringing in free agent goalkeeper Andy Lonergan for their pre-season tour of the USA, insisting that the agreement benefits both the player and the club.


​Liverpool opted to recruit the 35-year-old former Middlesbrough and Leeds United goalkeeper for pre-season, although Lonergan is not expected to be offered a permanent deal at Anfield.

Andrew Lonergan

Achterberg told ​Liverpool's ​official website that Lonergan was brought in to help deal with an injury crisis which has left Simon Mignolet as their only available senior goalkeeper.


He said: “We do this because obviously we are really light in the goalkeeping area. [Alisson] is on holiday, Kamil [Grabara] is going out on loan to ​Huddersfield, Caoimhin [Kelleher] has an injury, so that leaves us only with Si really and one young boy, Dan Atherton. 


"We need some cover in training so we thought we’d bring someone in who can help us [so we] don’t overload the goalkeepers in training.

Simon Mignolet

“Basically we’re bringing him in for training and we can try to help him get fit and we’ll see how it goes from there. It’s like he helps us and we help him to get fit.

“It’s always good to have an experienced goalie to be able to talk to, for the young ones to talk about his experience and stuff. That’s always good.

“We just hope that he can help us over the next few weeks and we can help him to try to get to a reasonable fitness level and then we’ll take it from there.”

During their tour of the USA, Liverpool are set to face ​Borussia Dortmund, Sevilla and Sporting CP, as they step up their preparations for the upcoming ​Premier League season.


Source : 90min